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I Got My First TV At 39 And Now I’m Scared of Everything
No wonder everybody is so anxious all the time.
I grew up in New York State near the Canadian border on a road so rural that cable TV wasn’t even an option. Instead, we had a giant metal antenna balanced precariously on the roof of our house. When we wanted to watch a show, my dad would climb up a ladder and swivel the antenna around until a fuzzy picture emerged on our living room TV set. We’d watch until the wind blew and then we were out of luck for the next few days when my dad had some free time to do it all again.
Whether it’s nature or nurture, I never developed an affinity for TV the way my friends did. I didn’t identify with a Friends character or quote lines from South Park. Instead, I learned about popular shows by hearing about them on NPR or reading about them in the newspaper.
In my 20s, I had a lot of roommates who had TVs. And then by my late 20s when I was on my own, I just never got around to getting a TV. And whether it was coincidence or chemistry, when my husband and I moved in together, he didn’t have a TV either.
By the time I turned 30, I had accepted that we were not going to be TV owners. Some people have dogs, others don’t. Some people have cats, others don't. Some people had TVs, we didn’t.
